***It’s Columbus Day, but we’re not taking the day off. Join us for our normal schedule – but beware you might have to deal with Little Italy street closures.***

Workout of the Day:
Deadlift
4-4-4-4
(as always, all reps must be completed without postural deviation)
and then,
As many rounds as possible in 10 minutes of:
5 Deadlifts (use 80% of today’s 4-RM)
10 Pull-Ups
15 Dynamic Push-Ups
(Push-ups – Adv.=Slapping Chest, Int.=Clapping, Beg.=Pop Hands Off Ground)

Great turnout and great event - thanks to all who made Friday's rowing and a movie event such a success!

The Invictus Programming Methodology – Part Two
Written by C.J. Martin – as it appeared on Dutch Lowy’s Blog

So here is how our 60 minute sessions breakdown, and you might see why we say CrossFit is the meat of our sandwich:

* Before we start – Self-Myofascial Release
o Our protocol for athletes who arrive prior to the beginning of our session is that they head straight to the back of the gym and grab a foam roller or a lacrosse ball (or both) and start digging in to areas that they know are problems for them. Most of our athletes understand that muscles with poor elasticity are going to be weaker and less tolerant of fatigue than muscles that are healthy and pliable.
* First 15-20 minutes – Dynamic Warm-Up and Range of Motion
o We spend a lot of time here because we get a lot of bang for our buck. This is an opportunity for our coaches to assess athletes’ movement patterns. We go through a battery of mobility drills that help prepare our athletes to move in the motor pathways that we will prioritize in the workout. If we see impediments to efficient movement, we know to keep an eye on them and talk with the athlete about specific ways to address them. If we can head off poor recruitment patterns from the start, we think we have a much better chance of getting the athlete moving well down the road.
o We also do our best to prime our athletes’ central nervous systems and metabolic pathways. This typically means ramping up the intensity of the warm-up and movements performed, sometimes to the point that beginners are stopping for water breaks and looking at the clock to figure out how much longer this will go on. But we want our athletes really warm and ready to move before we start loading them.
* Second 15-20 minutes – Strength or Skill Work
o CrossFitters have amazing capacity, but too often their limiting factor is their pure strength. I am in the camp that believes athletes can increase their work capacity most efficiently by developing more strength. And as Dan John says, “If it’s important, do it every day.” So for full disclosure, we do it almost every day. Typically, we lift heavy 4-5 days a week, and at least one day each week we work on a gymnastic skill – handstands, pull-ups, muscle-ups (or just muscle-up transitions for those who don’t have muscle-ups yet), etc….
o How do we organize our strength work? Well, it’s not just a random selection of whatever we feel like doing that day. I am not saying that doesn’t work, because if you spend time ACTUALLY DOING functional movement every day, you will get stronger, faster and generally better, even if there is no specific rhyme or reason to the way you organize these movements. That said, I think there is a more efficient and better way to develop strength. Our program contemplates strength through three main movement patterns – hip dominant, knee dominant, and pressing movements (horizontal and vertical), either in a power or a dynamic lift. We know there are other movement patterns out there, but we get a ton of midline stabilization and vertical pulling in other aspects of our training, so we focus our strength efforts on these three. We vary our programming a bit, but I generally like rep schemes of 5, 3 and 1, and we will put different movement patterns on different cycles. For example, here is what a week’s worth of strength programming might look like for us:
+ Monday – Power Clean (3-3-3-3) = Dynamic Hip Dominant
+ Tuesday – Shoulder Press (3-2-1-1-1) = Power Vertical Press
+ Wednesday – Back Squat (5-5-5) = Power Knee Dominant
+ Thursday – Warm up to one set of max reps pull-ups = Vertical Pull
+ Friday – Deadlift w/o postural deviation (3-3-3-3) = Power Hip Dominant
+ Saturday – Split Jerk (3-2-1-1-1) = Dynamic Vertical Press
o In the following week, vertical presses would probably be performed for 5 rep max, hip dominant would move to 1 rep max, and knee dominant would move to 3 rep max. The exercises themselves would probably be entirely different, something like: Front Squat, Single-Leg Deadlift, Bench Press, Split Squats, Handstand Holds, Snatch,
+ Monday – Front Squat
+ Tuesday – Single-Leg Deadlift
+ Wednesday – Bench Press
+ Thursday – Split Squats (or Bulgarian Split Squats for advanced athletes)
+ Friday – Handstand Holds
+ Saturday – Snatch
* Third 15-20 minutes – Metabolic Conditioning
o This is our hopper . . . kind of. I like to throw all sorts of things in here, but I weigh the volume of every week and month to ensure there is balance amongst the movement patterns. I look at how many hip dominant, knee dominant, vertical press and pull, horizontal press and pull movements we have programmed for each week, as well as the reps performed for each of these movement patterns. Maybe I am overly cautious, but I cringe when I see a week of programming that includes a total of 500 knee dominant reps and 45 hip dominant reps. You might laugh, but I bet it wouldn’t take me looking at more than three websites before I found this pattern repeat itself more than once in a given month. The typical justification is – “Dude, you have to prepare for the unknown and unknowable. You might have to do the same thing several days in a row.” Fair enough, but I am not sure it’s the best way to increase my athletes’ work capacity over broad time and modal domains. At the end of a week and a month, I want to see that there is a general balance amongst the movement patterns, and if anything, I prefer to see slightly more hip dominant and pulling movements in the program to offset the most common dysfunctions we see.
o I really prefer couplets and triplets, and dislike chippers. If there are more than 3 movements in a workout, I think you lose some of the focus and intensity. If you want more movements executed, go for it, but consider breaking them into two or three separate couplets and provide a mandatory rest period between them to allow for transition.
o Oh, and just because it says 15-20 minutes in the subheading doesn’t mean we are moving for that long, we have to build in time to set-up. Most of our workouts are between 6-12 minutes, a few a week stray to 15 or so, and normally we will go more than 15 once a week.
* Remaining 5-15 minutes – Stretching
o I am not going to spend a lot of time breaking down what we do, I’ll just note that we follow everything Kelly Starrett of San Francisco CrossFit puts out regarding mobility and maintenance. I think all of us that ignore or fail to prioritize flexibility/mobility (and I fall into this trap sometimes) are doing our clients an enormous disservice. If I was a better coach, I would mandate that nobody left until they did at least 10 minutes of effective stretching. Unfortunately, some of our athletes have to get to work or find another excuse to slip out when it’s time to stretch.

Tracking Progress – Strategic Use of Benchmark Workouts:
I have a lot to learn. One of the ways I can facilitate that process for myself is to track the progress of our athletes and figure out what is and is not working. For that reason, I start the calendar year by selecting dates on which we will perform certain benchmark workouts throughout the year. I have a handful of WODs that I run every 90 days, a handful that I run every 120 days, and a few that I run twice a year. If we don’t see improvements and new PRs, I am not doing my job as a coach (assuming, of course, that my athletes are showing up consistently – and they do for the most part). So far things are going well. We ran Fran for the third time on August 24 and we had PRs out of 25 of the 28 athletes who had done it 90 days earlier. Here is the summary of the results – http://www.crossfitinvictus.com/blog/2009/08/thursday-august-27-2009/#comments.

We also created some really cool Performance Logs to help our athletes track their own development. The Performance Logs have a list of the classic Benchmark WODs on the first couple of pages, pages for PR lifts, charts with Strength Standards, nutrition information, and 120 pages to log daily workouts. They are really convenient and serve as great motivators and diagnostic tools. We had a great response to them, so now we print them for other affiliates as well.

Conclusion:
I have no idea if this programming is the most effective way to train athletes. I don’t claim to be an expert or an innovator of anything, but what we are doing so far has been working well. Will it change over the next couple of months and over the next year? Hell yes! I am committed to nothing more than constantly learning new and better ways to help our athletes. So our program will constantly evolve as our coaches and I learn new strategies for improving performance. Which, of course, is why I am looking forward to your future posts looking at the programming from some of my favorite affiliates. You’re the man Dutch!

***Reminder – Rowing and a Movie tonight at University of San Diego at 7:00 p.m. Directions from downtown: Take I-5 North to the I-8 East exit. Immediately exit onto Morena Blvd. Steer right as Morena splits into Linda Vista Avenue (immediately after you pass under the I-5). Continue on Linda Vista through 4 stop lights and take your first available left into USD after the 4th light. Park next to the pool entrance, walk into the sports center basketball court, and go to the far west side of the building and you will see signs that say Invictus Rowing Extravaganza. Hope to see you all there.***

Workout of the Day:
Snatch (squat or power)
3-2-1-1-1
and then,
As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes of:
5 x Power Snatch (115/75 lbs.)
20 x Walking Lunges
20 x Anchored Sit-Ups

Happy Belated Birthday Barry!

The Invictus Programming Methodology – Part One
Written by C.J. Martin (first posted on Dutch Lowy’s Awesome Blog)

I hesitated to post this on our site because I am hoping many of you already read Dutch Lowy’s Blog regularly. If you don’t, start doing so. Dutch posts some great information and has for a while now been helping coaches and affiliate owners provide better coaching and programming for their athletes. I also strongly suggest that you sign up for Dutch’s Performance Seminar, which we will be hosting on Sunday, November 8, 2009.

Dutch wanted to review a few different programs and he asked me to explain a bit about ours. I did, but it took me a couple of pages, so he wisely broke this into two parts. Here’s the content as it appeared on Dutch’s Blog:

Crossfit Invictus is run by CJ Martin, a good friend of mine and someone that has made a huge impact on me as a trainer. I picked his affiliate as the only one i am going to review, first because he did this huge write up which keeps me from having to work too much secondly, he does something simple everyday: Offers excellence in everything he does. You will see how he does it with his training but until you have spent time at Invictus you won’t get how else he provides excellence. Something that i haven’t seen anyone else make a point to do is, do something new to the gym every week. This seems little but i guarantee if your clients see you investing in them and their facility they will feel much better about investing in you long term.

In the beginning (Jan 2009), Invictus was mainly beginning crossfitters and athletes for that matter. Many of the clients had little exposure to anything athletic so CJ viewed his programming as something very simple and easy to understand. I think this was a great idea and is still working very well for him as it would for more advanced athletes. The beautiful thing about his programming is that once his clients get used to it they come to expect the strength work as part of Crossfit. The biggest deficiency i see in crossfit is strength training so if you can get beginners to see the value, you have made your job much easier.

As a program, I love it. As a gym, I love it. If you get the chance to go check it out, please do.
Now, enjoy CJ’s review of his own program.

Goals and Objectives:
I don’t mean to sound like a smart ass, but the objective of our program is to increase our athletes’ work capacity over broad time and modal domains. We might go about doing that a bit differently than the main site or some of the other CrossFit affiliates, but we believe whole-heartedly that fitness should be defined by that standard.

Beyond that, our goal as a fitness facility is to provide a comprehensive approach to health and wellness. We are uniquely situated to be able to affect our athletes’ lives through more than just workouts, and we try to take advantage of that opportunity by providing nutrition counseling, Paleo/Zone meal delivery (through Mmmm Good Meals), and a network of professionals who help keep our athletes feeling their best (we have a massage therapist, ART practitioner, Rolfing/Tui Na practitioner and an acupuncturist that service our members for a discounted rate). We understand that achieving optimal performance means MUCH more than learning the nine foundational movements of CrossFit, and as professional coaches we have a duty to learn how to address dysfunction so that our athletes can be as biomechanically efficient as possible and so they are not in danger of missing training days due to injury. That belief and commitment to continuous education informs much of what we do at CrossFit Invictus.

How We Achieve Our Objective:
If you asked me, I would say that we just do CrossFit. But there seems to be a lot of varied perspectives about what CrossFit is, so I often default to saying that CrossFit is the meat of our sandwich. It provides the substance for what we do day in and day out, but we bookend each of our 60 minute sessions with supplemental skill and strength work, as well as a lot of mobility work. I think the perspective that CrossFit is simply the “Met-Con” workout that has a stopwatch attached to it is crazy, but we hear that misconception often. CrossFit’s foundational principles are centered around well-executed functional movement (think consistency before intensity and striving for virtuosity), so we try to put some focus there and provide athletes with tools to move better. I also read the CrossFit foundational documents to contemplate some strength or skill-specific work before a short couplet of functional movements, so when folks refer to our programming as a “strength-bias” program, I just say “sure.” But I guess that’s what we’re calling it now.

To be Continued…

Workout of the Day:
Four rounds for time of:
400 Meter Run
10 x Deadlift (65-70% of your one-rep max)
20 x Seesaw Press (heavy)

The future of CrossFit

Please . . . Just Listen
Written by Michele Vieux

One of the many benefits of membership at Invictus is that each and every time you walk into the gym; you have a coach. You don’t have to plan your warm-ups and workouts. There is always a watchful eye instructing you, looking over you, and cueing you.

Listen to those instructions and cues! We have assembled an awesomely knowledgeable team of coaches who enjoy sharing what they know with each of you.

Give your full, undivided attention to your coach during pre-workout instruction so you know what is going on once the WOD starts. With our current programming, there is often a few heavy lift sets followed by a SHORT metcon. There is purpose behind the programming and the instructions your coach gives for each portion of the WOD. If the coach takes the time to specify that the metcon WOD should be scaled so it can be completed in a certain timeframe, take heed.

It can become easier to get hung up on doing the workout as prescribed rather than with the intensity that is intended. For example, if a WOD that is intended to take less than ten minutes and it takes you 20+ because you opted to rep out singles with 20 seconds rest in between each of them instead of modifying to a point where you would be able to rep out multiples with less rest, you have compromised the intensity of the workout and your overall power output.

Sometimes this will require you to be stopped mid-workout for instruction. Don’t rush this! If your coach is willing to stop you mid-workout, what they have to say is crucial for your technique, form and/or safety. CJ put it well in a recent blog post, “Go hard . . . and be damn-near perfect. I can accept slight deviations of form when you’re hitting it at high intensity, but you should be striving for perfection. (And if your coach’s interpretation of ‘slight deviation of form’ is different from yours, you are the one who is wrong. Listen to your coach and slow down.)”

Sometimes this means checking your ego at the door. See above about using a weight that is too heavy for you. Safety first. Intensity second. Listen to your coaches if they tell you to step down a notch.

Your coaches are here to keep you safe, guide you, push you, help you master your technique, and make you an all-around better athlete. Take advantage of their desire to do so and push yourself to be your best!

Workout of the Day:
Press
3-3-3-3
and then,
Rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps for time of:
Bodyweight Bench Press
Pull-Ups
(WOD courtesy of www.crossfitfootball.com.)

Post-WOD lounging is encouraged, but wouldn't it be great if even our lounging was improving athletic performance?

Go With the Flow – New Gym Routines and Procedures
Written by C.J. Martin

All gyms have a natural flow to them – a pattern by which members arrive, situate themselves and prepare to have a great workout. For some, it’s sprinting in and joining the already-in-progress group warm-up (ahem, “A”-Game), but for others it entails some pre-WOD mingling and catching up with friends. I love this, and heartily encourage it as our community is what makes CrossFit Invictus so different from other places. Nonetheless, I am proposing some new rules that will improve both your socializing and athletic performance. So next time you are in, go with the following flow of the gym:

1. Check-In at the Front Desk - This is not optional. You all have really cool little key fabs or membership cards. Please scan them when you arrive.
2. Gather with Friends at the Back of the Building and Roll - Some of the best tools in the gym are the black foam rollers and lacrosse balls (individual and those taped together). In my opinion, they are not being used nearly enough. Rolling some of your tight muscle groups helps get needed blood flow to them, loosens them so they will contract and relax better, and generally improves their functionality for the athletic endeavor you are about to embark upon. And the great thing is, you can roll and socialize at the same time. Yes, your conversation might be interrupted occasionally by a yelp, but that’s just good fun and provides for some comedic relief. So gather there and roll while you catch up with friends.
3. Dynamic, Skill-Based Warm-Up with Group – Once group session begins, your coach will put you through a dynamic warm-up. Recognize that this is not only a warm-up, but also an opportunity to put your body in ideal positions. Use this time to reinforce proper mechanics. For instance, when you lunge, think about how you lunge in a split jerk or split clean. Are you grooving that ideal pattern, or are you forward on the toe and too narrow? Make the most of this time and perform each movement perfectly. 
4. Strength/Skill Work – No ego. Nobody is impressed when you deadlift 400 lbs. and herniate two discs in the process. Strive for virtuosity here. Move well and your numbers will progressively skyrocket. Move poorly and you might get some big numbers for a while, but you also run the risk of missing valuable training sessions because you are nursing injuries. This is your chance to perfect movements without a clock pressuring you to move quickly. Take the opportunity to be perfect. Once you have been consistently perfect, then begin to be consistently perfect with big weights.
5. Timed Workout – Go hard . . . and be damn-near perfect. I can accept slight deviations of form when you’re hitting it at high intensity, but you should be striving for perfection. (And if your coach’s interpretation of “slight deviation of form” is different from yours, you are the one who is wrong. Listen to your coach and slow down.)
6. Clean Up - Once you have completed your workout, please give us a hand by wiping down the bars and placing everything back where you found it. There is, however, one caveat: Be respectful of those who are still working out. It’s better to cheer someone on or relax than walk right in front of them with your barbell and weights. Nobody likes to be last, particularly when everyone else is cleaning up around them. Wipe down your bar and do a little static stretching while you cheer for others, then you can put your gear away and give them a hand with theirs.
7. Log Your Performance - If you don’t have a Performance Log, your coach will be chatting with you this week. They are essential to tracking your athletic progress. You will never know if what you are doing is effective unless you can track what you have been doing. This is the best $15 investment you will make in your fitness. 
8. Post-WOD Recovery Work – If your coach puts you through a post-WOD recovery drill (stretching or additional skill work) please view it with the same respect you view the first portions of the workout. Recovery is instrumental to getting more fit. If you slack here, it will show. If your coach ran out of time, you’re not excused from stretching. Most of you know our protocols for post-WOD stretching, and even if you don’t, any stretching after your WOD is better than none. Get it done – your body will thank you.
9. GHD Machines - Almost as neglected as the foam rollers are our beautiful GHD machines. End your workout the way you began it, by socializing near the back wall. Jump on the GHD and knock out 10 sit-ups and 10 hip extensions. Then let a friend on to do the same. Switch on and off until you have done somewhere between 30-50 sit-ups and extensions.
10. Grab Your MMMM Good Meal or Invictus Shots – Invictus Shots help you recover quicker by replacing depleted glycogen stores in your muscles. Shoot one immediately after your workout and your muscles will start recovering quicker – which means you might not be as sore the next day. Grab a meal for later while you’re at it. They’re delicious, nutritionally balanced and inexpensive – plus, you didn’t have to cook it.

**Don’t forget to make your donation to Steve’s Club or bring it on Saturday for our Beat the Streets Fundraiser.**

Workout of the Day:
Deadlift
3-3-3-3
and then,
“Randy”
For time:
75 Power Snatches (75/45 lbs.)

The Hammer and the 5:30 Crew

Is Our Programming CrossFit or CrossFit Strength Bias?
Written by C.J. Martin

If you have not already read the CrossFit Journal article titled “Strong Medicine,” you should do so today. In it, Bingo White and Jeff Martin (Brand X) explain the gains they have seen in themselves and their athletes from a “strength biased” program. The program incorporates a heavy lift almost daily, followed by a short, intense “met-con” workout. A version of a similarly “strength biased” program can also be seen on the CrossFit Football website – a site programmed by a team of guys for whom we have a great deal of respect.

I should note up front that Jeff Martin is regarded as a superhero in the eyes of the CrossFit Invictus coaching staff. So it is no coincidence that our programming resembles that which is explained in the article. But is our program CrossFit Strength Bias?

I don’t know, and frankly, don’t care much what you want to call it. As a lawyer (no longer practicing since January 1, thank you very much) I have an awkward obsession with the words of important documents. And as a coach who had the opportunity to lecture at CrossFit Certifications, I have read the CrossFit foundational documents more than a few dozen times in preparation for weekend certs. So when I heard about the “strength bias” concept of lifting before a met-con, it sounded awfully familiar. In fact, it has been around since the very beginning of CrossFit. As noted by Jeff and Bingo, CrossFit Founder Greg Glassman states in his seminal article “What is Fitness?” that:
“One of our favorite workout patterns is to warm-up and then perform three to five sets of three to five reps of a fundamental lift at a moderately comfortable pace followed by a ten-minute circuit of gymnastics elements at a blistering pace and finally finish with two to ten minutes of high intensity metabolic conditioning.”

Unfortunately, you might run across some CrossFit affiliates that have strayed a bit from these foundational principles and have fallen in love with the long grinder workouts. Sure, everyone loves to get their ass kicked in a 30-plus minute grinder every once in a while, but I don’t believe the road to elite fitness should be paved by these drawn out battles. I want our athletes to develop strength, competence in the fundamental movements and intensity over various time domains. I believe that performing fundamental lifts more frequently with the guidance of our coaches will better develop proper mechanics and recruitment patterns. I also believe that focusing on high intensity over short durations (3 to 15 minutes) will lead to better all-around development of our athletes. That is not to say I won’t throw a longer event at our athletes every once in a while; I still want proficiency in all time domains. But I am betting that Filthy Fifty, Murph and 10k times aren’t too adversely affected by focusing on increasing power output over shorter durations. And the good news is that our crew of adventurous and capable athletes are always up to the challenge of testing our hypothesis.

Workout of the Day:
Power Cleans
3-3-3-3
and then,
Three rounds for time of:
30 Box Jumps (30″/24″)
15 Deadlifts (185/125 lbs.)
15 Pull-Ups

CrossFit Invictus is proud to be a host site for the First Annual Beat the Streets Fundraiser this Saturday, May 9th.

Beat the Streets Fundraiser
Written by C.J. Martin

Steve Liberati, founder of Steve’s Club, is one of the truly good guys in the CrossFit community. His dedication to serving at-risk youth and effecting a positive change in his community is unparalleled.  

Steve’s Club is a non-profit CrossFit affiliate located in the heart of Camden, New Jersey – ranked one of America’s “most dangerous” cities. The mission of Steve’s Club is to provide excellent coaching, community, support and guidance to the youth of Camden.  On a broader scale, their goal is to create a positive place for young people to get away from the stresses they endure in their daily lives. Steve’s Club provides a sense of community, belonging and hope while instilling the values of discipline, responsibility and teamwork through CrossFit training and coaching.  

Times have been tough on all non-profit organizations, and Steve’s Club has not been exempt from these hard times. Steve is making miracles with very little, but the kids of Steve’s Club need our help.

Beat the Streets is a fundraising and awareness event designed to assist Steve’s Club to raise money to purchase new equipment and cover the operating expenses of their CrossFit gym in Camden. On Saturday, May 9, 2009, CrossFit affiliates around the country will be hosting a special Beat the Streets workout (quite challenging, but scalable) to celebrate the fundraising effort. You can make donations at the event, or preferably, beforehand.

To make donations and learn more about Steve’s Club, please click the link to Steve’s Club. 

Thank you for your support!